Absolon, Kurt

The hunt, 1955 Ink on paper Signed and dated lower right, titled lower left 30,1 x 44 cm framed Absolon studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. The majority of his paintings depict scenes from everyday life and literary-inspired illustrations. As a young man, he experienced World War II as a soldier; the traumatic experience appears in surprisingly few of his works. The ink drawing The Hunt, however, is one of those images that express that overwhelming terror that can only come from the deepest wells of the psyche. "Today we still do not know who we have lost in Kurt Absolon. He worked in silence. Many things were preparing with him, which he did not yet want to make accessible to the public in exhibitions. He knew no haste. He did not belong to any of those cliques that cannot shout loud enough to hide the inadequacy of their art through pretentiousness. He kept himself far away from all business. And now he is so unreachably distant from us." Wieland Schmidt, 1958 WVZ 645, p 324